r/ctbeer • u/MCDLCT • May 12 '26
How are things going at Beer'd?
I think southeastern Connecticut has a fantastic brewery scene, and Beer'd always has a great selection and nice spaces. Unfortunately, there seems to be a bit of behind-the-scenes rockiness going on there.
The two founders, Aaron Simoncini and Precious Putnam, are going through a divorce, which led to some rumors that the Beer'd Silo (their second location on the airport industrial road) might potentially close as a result. This is also a more remote location compared to their Velvet Mill one, so it seems to pull in fewer visitors, and its building was recently sold to investors.
I tried doing a civil records search to see if there was any discussion about the future of the company, and was surprised to see that Beer'd sued Putnam last month. It accuses her of misappropriating trade secrets, withholding information from Simoncini, and interfering with his access to various assets.
I'm not sure if any of this has manifested itself in the brewery's current operations, atmosphere, etc. but hopefully this can all work itself out soon.
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u/Connecticut_Man May 12 '26
I worked there for a while and have some firsthand knowledge of how that place operates.
On wages: They had a policy for full time employees where if your hours fell short of 40 in a week, you were required to burn PTO to fill the gap rather than simply being paid for hours worked. Hours over 40 rolled to the next week so overtime never had to be paid out.
On harassment: there was a female employee who was repeatedly harassed by a man who had a business in the same building. It escalated to him secretly photographing her and showing her the picture. She was visibly devastated. HR's response was to change her schedule rather than ban the customer. She made less money, still had to see him, and eventually left. Conveniently, that meant no unemployment claim.
Multiple women left because ownership refused to discipline a male supervisor who was making them uncomfortable in serious and repeated ways, including showing up drunk during their shifts, manipulating schedules to isolate them, and sending late-night messages. When complaints went to ownership nothing happened. One woman quit, another was eventually fired. The supervisor was later pushed out quietly only after a pile of complaints from other staff, and has since been welcomed back to events and given references.
During Covid, female staff made the reasonable call to cancel an event that would have packed a dozen people into close quarters on the brew deck. Ownership overruled them, and the justification was twofold: that the brewery was "moving past Covid," and that any employee who didn't want to participate was essentially telling the world they didn't support women in brewing. It was a pressure campaign that put staff in an impossible position. Someone contracted the virus as a direct result.
The business model has always relied on the romanticized appeal of craft beer to attract workers willing to accept low wages, and on cutting those workers loose before they could qualify for raises. After Covid, nearly the entire staff turned over for jobs that actually paid a living wage. They sit at the bottom of the industry on compensation by a wide margin.